Karina Cooks for Campout- 8+ meals in 3 days for 20-50 people each...

My oldest sister Alia is a DJ and party-thrower based out of Santa Cruz. She is a part of cooperative organization called Raindance, that throws epic music and dance parties all throughout California and beyond. One of their biggest events every summer is a weekend-long party out in the woods called the Raindance Campout, and this year she brought me along to cook for the set-up crew and staff for the 3 days before the party began!


She told me I would be making breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, and that there was an estimated 20-50 people to feed (the number increasing each meal as all the workers, crew and staff started to arrive.) I decided to plan relatively easy meals that would feed a bunch of people, and together we came up with the massive shopping lists.

Once she bought Costco out and picked me up in San Francisco, we headed up to the Mendocino area (Saratoga Springs), where we were the first to arrive on base at an impressive 3:30 am.


We had several hours before other people started to arrive, so once I organized the massive amount of groceries in our homey cabin kitchen, I began to prep in any way I could. My first task was to make an epic amount of hummus (since my motto is you can eat hummus with any meal of the day!). I added an industrial sized can of garbanzo beans, almost a whole can of tahini, three lemons, a whole lot of garlic, salt and water to the food processor I thankfully brought with me and tampered with the mixture until I got the perfect flavor and consistency. Throughout the week I would keep a small bowl of hummus out with some chips on the table and refill it periodically so the whole tub wouldn't disappear in one go!


I knew that night I was planning on Taco night, so I decided to get ahead and make a large vat of mango- avocado salsa. I diced up three mangoes, a handful of baby carrots, fresh thyme, garlic and lots of ginger.


I halved maybe 7 or 8 ripe avocados and added them to my salsa with the juice of a whole lemon and lime squeezed in, and added sea salt, cumin, black pepper, cayenne and drizzle of agave.


When the evening started to set in and more and more crew started to arrive with bellies grumbling, I began assembling the taco train. I sauteed two or three onions, several orange and yellow peppers, crimini mushrooms and chopped garlic in olive oil and spiced the lot with the usual salt, pepper, cayenne, cumin and paprika.


Even though I am a vegetarian, I took on the ground beef next. I began by sauteing a chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic in some olive oil in the bottom of a large pot. Once the onions were translucent, I threw in all of the ground beef my sister had purchased and began breaking it up with a metal spatula as it cooked. I eventually spiced with salt, chili flakes, cayenne, cumin and a few splashes of brags here and there. When I saw that it was cooked enough, I asked other people to taste it for me and they were surprisingly impressed at the flavor.

I heated each corn tortilla on the flame of the burner (flipping each side until it was warm and starting to blacken) and kept them warm in the oven. I had opened a big industrial can of black beans and added spices and garlic to it as it warmed up on the back burner.

I finally set out the avocado-mango salsa, some hummus, some grated cheese, cilantro and the tortillas and allowed people to help themselves down the taco train!



The next morning I got up early and began preparing a hefty breakfast to sustain the busy worker bees. I took the same route in sauteing veggies (we had bought everything in bulk so I used the same ingredients over and over) to go in a big egg scramble. Once the veggies were cooked and spiced to my liking, I drained the extra liquid out of the pan and added probably 25-30 eggs I had cracked into a bowl and very very lightly pre-scrambled. I made sure to stay on scrambling the eggs in the pan every few minutes until eventually I had a perfectly cooked, perfectly moist scramble filled with delicious veggies. I added a touch more salt, cumin and cayenne to it.


My sister had bought a big bag of pre-prepared pancake mix, so I spiced it up by adding fresh ginger, banana, cinnamon and frozen organic blueberries.


We also made several batches of bacon for the meat eaters, which I tackled by spreading the strips of bacon out on cookie sheets and baking them on high heat in the oven. This is a great way to cook bacon in large quantities!

I also re-heated the black beans from the night before, and also set out the mango-avocado salsa and more hummus.


As soon as I was fed myself and cleaned up after the big breakfast that about 25-30 people showed up for, I began prepping for lunch. I decided to re-use my left overs and made two big fresh taco salads. (One veggie, one with some of the left-over taco meat.)

I washed several heads of romaine lettuce and mixed it with the mixed greens Alia had purchased, and added fresh diced red, orange and yellow peppers, cucumber, cilantro, tomatoes, left over black beans, and fresh avocado. I whipped up a salad dressing by adding chopped garlic and ginger, fresh rosemary, olive oil, braggs, lemon, agave, salt, cinnamon, and water.

I also set out a bunch of bread, cold cuts, cheese and condiments so people could build their own sandwiches. Lunch was at no particular time so I left everything out and labeled it so people could come in at their own hunger alarms.


After a small break, I began prepping the pasta sauce for the big dinner that night. In a big pot I sauteed several onions, mushrooms, peppers, garlic, ginger and rosemary in olive oil...


Once I had added one industrial sized can of tomato paste and one of diced tomatoes, I added some initial spices and a few splashes of red wine and put it on low. Since I needed to get out of that kitchen for awhile, I left a sign inviting people coming in and out to stir the sauce in my absence.


About an hour before serving, I added a bunch of fresh organic kale someone had dropped by our cabin.


Since we were planning on serving so many people that night, I moved everything over to the industrial sized kitchen in the main lodge. I found the biggest pot I could in there, and filled it with water to take on a massive amount of spaghetti noodles.


I got some helpers in the kitchen who were also cooking some food to contribute, and they helped prep the garlic bread Alia had picked up, while I worked on the salad.


I took mixed greens and added yellow and red peppers and chopped asparagus. I tossed it with more of the salad dressing I had made earlier that day.




The next morning was my final scheduled breakfast and I pretty much repeated everything, but added a roasted potato dish. I boiled them briefly so they would be softer and easy to roast, and then tossed them with stripes of onion, diced garlic, salt, curry, cumin, cayenne, cinnamon and black pepper.


I roasted the potatoes at about 450* in the oven, stirring often, until they were crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. I squeezed a touch of lemon on them right before serving!




Although my big meal duties were technically over, hungry bellies continually showed up at out cabin headquarters, so I found myself constantly preparing snacks and light meals throughout the rest of the campout.



Even though my hands were raw from washing dishes and my feet were numb from standing, I felt strangely fulfilled from feeding so many people... And finally it was time to put down the spatulas and cutting knives and hit the dance floor!!

Karina Does Betty Does!

I have a lovely and impressive friend, Jesse Silver, who recently teamed up with other lovely and impressive women to start the online magazine, Betty Does.

Betty Does is a new San Francisco collective publication celebrating women and their work.

I had been following their posts and reading their interviews since they began a few months ago, so to say I was thrilled and flattered beyond belief when Jesse asked me to be her first interviewee is an understatement.

She asked to interview me about my cake making, food blogging, and acting, and we decided it would be fun to make a cake in the process. Since the lovely and impressive Betty photographer, Margo Moritz, was also coming over to document the interview, I offered to make them both dinner as well...



Like so many people out there, Jesse has a gluten intolerance so I decided to recycle an old idea I had of using shreddings of zucchini for a pasta rather than wheat noodles.


I made a vegan pesto by blending raw cashews I had soaked overnight with a few handfuls of organic basil, several cloves of garlic, a squeezed lemon, olive oil, sea salt, cayenne and pepper in the food processor.


I wanted to make some type of protein in the form of a "meatball" for the pasta, so I quickly improvised with the left over quinoa dish I had made the night before. I started by chopping some carrots, raw almonds, and sunflower seeds in the food processor.


I added a cup or two of the leftover quinoa dish I had made that consisted of quinoa, brussel sprouts, mushrooms, spinach, apples, vegan sausage and the lot of my usual spicing (salt, pepper, cumin, curry, cayenne, cinnamon, braggs and lemon.) I also threw in a few spoon fulls of organic re-fried beans I had open to help bind the mixture when it came to forming balls.




I heated up sunflower oil (good for high heat) and lightly fried them on all sides until they were crunchy on the outside.


I then set them on a paper towel to soak up any excess oil.


I boiled water in a pan and cooked my "zuc noods" for a few minutes until soft and then drained them.


In another pan, I sauteed an onion, some garlic, and several shitake mushrooms in olive oil and then salt and peppered them.


I threw the mushrooms and onions in with the pesto and "noodles" and mixed well.


I made a fresh salad of lettuce, spinach, orange segments, avocado, snap peas and almond slivers and tossed with a tahini-tomato dressing.


The Betties seemed quite pleased! Jesse brought a lovely Riesling to accompany the meal and it all made for a perfect appetizer to the Mango-Ginger-Sage cake that was made! (Coming soon in the Betty Does article!)

Karina and friends whip up spicy eggplant pasta!

When I arrived over at my friend Jen's the other night for a small dinner gathering, she quickly introduced me to the pile of fresh produce on her counter that she wasn't sure what to do with. I was thrilled when she asked me to step in. There was a large eggplant, an apple, onions, garlic, asparagus, a half an avocado and part of a tomato.


She also had a bunch of pasta, so we decided to go that route and immediately started sauteing onions in olive oil and added some garlic and the chopped up eggplant to make the base of a sauce.

I spiced the eggplant mix with salt, pepper, chili flakes, Teriyaki Sauce, sesame seeds, lemon and dried basil, and when it was soft and cooked, I added a little over half of it to the blender where some pine nuts and the leftover avocado and tomato were waiting to mix up a sauce. The blender had a hard time going, so I added a little more olive oil and water to it, and within a minute we had a delicious and creamy thick eggplant sauce. I added more garlic, salt, cayenne and lemon to get the flavor just right.


I returned to the remaining onions, garlic and eggplant in the saute pan, and added the apple and asparagus that Jen had chopped up.


We started boiling vermicelli noodles and later added cooked udon noodles to the mix to make more.


Once the cooking veggies were perfected, I added in our spicy eggplant sauce to get it all nice and warm for the noodles.


Job Well Done. Delicious!


Sometimes you have to be creative when there is a shortage of matching dishes!

Karina plays with filo dough and ear pasta....

Visiting my insanely busy sister and brother-in-law in Los Angeles this past week, I saw how desperately in need they were of a good, home cooked meal. I raided their refrigerator and cabinets for ingredients, ran to the store for a little fresh produce, and blindly jumped in to see what would come out.

I found some filo dough in the freezer and realized as much as I love eating it, I have never cooked with it. As is almost always the case, I was thrilled to find how easy it was! I set one folded filo dough sheet at room temp for 30 minutes until it was thawed, and mixed an egg with a bit of water in a small bowl. I spread the dough over a flour-dusted cookie sheet and brushed it with my egg mix.

I boiled some yams she had sitting around until soft, and put them in the blender with a cup of found almonds that I had been soaking, garlic, onions, rosemary, agave, 1 small tangerine, a few scoops of organic white beans from a can, salt, pepper, cinnamon, and paprika. I blended the mix until it reached a thick paste and still hand some crunchy texture. I spread the mix over the dough and laid out sliced onions, apples and rosemary.

I dabbed flour on my hands and started to roll the dough up, starting at one of the shorter ends (almost like I would do with sushi). I formed it along the way to keep it as even a girth as possible the whole way through. Then I took a clean sharp knife and cut them unto 1- 1 1/2 inch circles and spread them out on the greased cookie sheet. I stuck them in the oven at 400* to bake about 20-25 minutes or until they were golden brown, cooked-through and flakey. While they were doing their magic in the oven, I moved onto the next project..

I starting a sauce for the pasta I found. I sliced an onion, two or three tomatoes, and more rosemary and began sauteing them in a large sauce pot with olive oil.

When everything started to get really soft, I took my sister's fancy new hand immersion blender and began pureeing everything together.

I added avocado, artichoke hearts, almonds and garlic. I spiced with cayenne, salt, pepper, citrus (orange and lemon), agave, champagne vinegar, a splash of black truffle oil, a splash of walnut oil, & almond milk. (I may be forgetting a few things because I sprinkled and splashed all through the spice rack for a good 30-45 minutes while the sauce was maturing!)

I found some Japanese dried shitake mushrooms and had been soaking them in my warm yam water until they were soft and expanded. I then threw them in the mix.

I had bought some fresh dark greens and decided to stem them with my left over yam-mushroom broth that was forming. To be honest I thought this was kale, and my brother in law thought it was swiss chard. I've been looking at photos all morning on line, and the closest thing I can find is Red-Russian Kale, but I could be totally mistaken! (Please let me know if you have any thoughts..) Anyway, clearly I bought them on looks and potential taste and not the name...

I threw some red bell pepper into the pot with the "greens" and steamed until they were soft and tender, but not mushy. I tossed them with some balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and lemon and put them aside for the meal.

When raiding the pantry, I discovered the pasta that I had bought for them for Christmas that they had not yet had the chance to use. It was Orechiette Pasta, which I believe means "ear pasta" (due to their striking resemblance to ears). I found them in the San Francisco Ferry Building down on Embarcadero. I was stoked when they gave me the go ahead to use it.

I mixed in my sauce and topped it with some fresh organic arugula.
I checked the oven and it was time for my yam-apple rolls to come out! They were perfect (and in my opinion the best part of the meal!)

We set the table, opened up a delicious red from Bonny Doon Vineyards and had a feast!